Consumption of vitamin a rich foods and dark adaptation threshold of pregnant women at Damot Sore District, Wolayita, southern Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: More than 7.2 million pregnant women in developing countries suffer from vitamin A deficiency. The objective of this study was to assess dark adaptation threshold of pregnant women and related socio-demographic factors in Damot Sore District, Wolayita Zone, Southern Ethiopia.METHODS: A cross-sectional study design was employed to collect data from 104 pregnant women selected by a two stage cluster sampling. A Dietary Diversity Score was calculated by counting the number of food groups consumed by the women in 24 hour period prior to the study. Scotopic Sensitivity Tester-1 was used to test participant’s pupillary response to graded amounts of light in a dark tent. RESULTS: Half of the pregnant women in this study had dietary diversity score less than three. The majority of participants (87.5%) had consumed either animal or plant source vitamin A rich foods less than three times a week. For a unit increase in individual dietary diversity score, there was a decrease in dark adaptation measurement by 0.29 log cd/m2 (p=0.001). For a unit increase in gestational week of pregnancy, there was an increase in dark adaptation measurement by 0.19 log cd/m2 (P=0.027). CONCLUSIONS: Results from this study indicated that the pregnant women had low consumption of vitamin A rich foods, and their dark adaptation threshold increases with gestational age indicating that their vitamin A status is getting worse. There is a need to design appropriate intervention and target this group of population.KEYWORDS: Vitamin A deficiency, pregnant women, dark adaptation threshold, Southern Ethiopi

Major Intraoperative Complications of Cholecystectomy in a Teaching Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Background: Gall stone disease is one of the commonly handled surgical pathologies by a General Surgeon. Major intra operative complications are less commonly encountered in experienced hands. The rate may increase in a teaching hospital where Residents are allowed to operate. Therefore it was with this assumption that a study was carried to assess the incidence and contributing factors for the complications in a tertiary teaching hospital.Methods: A retrospective chart and operation log book review was done in a two -year period between January 2009 and December 2010 in St Paul’s teaching hospital, AA, Ethiopia.Results: A total of 645 cholecystectomy, 588(91.2%) open and 57(8.8%) laparoscopic, were done in the study period. Females comprised 80.9% of the patients. The average age of the patients was 42.8 years with a range of 18 to 80. Major surgical complications were seen in 19(2.9%) patients but adequate information was found for 16 patients only with a retrievalrate of 84.2 %. Of the 16 patients 14(87.5%) were female. Thirteen  patients had open cholecystectomy and the rest 3 patients had  laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Accordingly the rate for open  cholecystectomy was 13/588(2.21%), and that of laparoscopic surgery3/57(5.26%). Twelve (92.3%) of the complicated cases in open   cholecystectomy were done by residents alone. The rate of complications for the consultants in open surgery was 0.2% and that of the residents 6.0%. The odd that patients operated by residents will develop IBDI was 6.25 times higher than that of the seniors. There is statistically significantassociation between seniority and major surgical complications(X2= 11.91, P=0.001).Conclusions: The incidence of major complications of cholecystectomy is unacceptably high in this study. Almost all complications occurred in the hands of residents which show that experience matters. Therefore it is our recommendation that residents should not be left alone until they get reasonable experience in the field

A critique of current methods in nematode taxonomy

Morphology based nematode taxonomy and biodiversity studies have historically challenged most biologists. In the past few decades, there have been efforts to integrate molecular methods and digital 3D image-capturing technology in nematode taxonomy, the former to enhance the accuracy of identification of such a taxonomically challenging group and the latter to communicate morphological data. While the employment of these two methods is growing in recent taxonomic, biodiversity andbiogeographic studies, a movement to abandon traditional phenotypic identification methods altogether has emerged. Proponents try to justify this trend by citing the challenging gap between the high estimated number of undescribed species and the limited ability of traditional taxonomy to accomplish the task of documenting such diversity. Here we present a review of the various techniques used in the taxonomy of free-living and plant parasitic nematodes and critique those methods in the context of recent developments and trends including their implications in nematode taxonomy, biodiversity and biogeography.Key words: Species delimitation, taxonomic methods, genetic and molecular methods, traditional taxonomy, nematode biodiversity

N-nitrosation of N-methylaniline and nitrosamine toxicology in the wistar rats

The aim of this study is to investigate the urinary excretion of nitrosamine ions in rats, to investigate the effect of precursors of N-nitrosamine on serum enzymes activities and to evaluate the toxicity on liver on exposure to N- nitrosamine precursors. Forty two male wistar rats were divided into six groups and each group was admininistered with varying doses of sodium nitrite and N-methylaniline. The following methods were used; spectrophotometry, thin layer chromatography, cell fractionation, centrifugation, dialysis, histopathology, enzymatic and colorimetry. The RF values of the test samples were similar to those of the test standard, signifying the presence of N-nitrosamine in the urine of the rat. Liver function test, showed significant elevations (P < 0.05) in the AST, ALT, ALP and GGT activities in all the test groups compared with the control. Histological evaluation showed severe haemorrhage within the sinusoid, the portal triad was infiltrated by inflammatory cells in both NaNO2 induced group and NMA combined with NaNO2 group, thus showing acute damage compared with the control group which showed no lesion. The present study showed the urinary excretion of nitrosamine formed from N-methylaniline and sodium nitrite, the effect of N-methylaniline and sodium nitrite on serum enzymes and their toxicity on the liver of wistar rats

Study on the assessment of drug resistance on Trypanosoma vivax in Tselemti woreda , Tigray, Ethiopia

The study was conducted at Tselemti Woreda, Tigray region, Northern Ethiopia, some 1200 kms away from the capital, from November 2002 to April 2003. In the first phase of this study, questionnaire survey was carried out to assess livestock production constraints. Subsequently, a study on the occurrence of drug resistance to diminazene aceturate and isomethamidum chloride of Trypanosoma vivax isolate in artificially infected goats were conducted. Results of the questionnaire survey revealed that 95.7% of the interviewees replied that trypanosomosis is a series problem in their areas. Apart from this, under dosing of trypanocidal drugs appeared a common practice in the areas surveyed. Drug sensitivity test conducted on 18 artificially infected goats revealed that T. vivax developed resistance to the curative doses of diminazene aceturate (3.5 mg/kg b.wt) and isomethamidum chloride (0.25 mg/kg b.wt). No relapses were seen for those animals treated with diminazen aceturate at a dose of 7 mg/kg b.wt and 0.5 mg/kg b.wt of isomethamidum chloride. Sanative pair between diminazene aceturate and isometamidum chloride was also confirmed by the occurrence of no relapses after first treatment with diminazene aceturate (at 3.5 mg/kg) and isomethamidum chloride (0.25 mg/kg) and a second treatment with 0.25 mg/kg isomethamidum chloride and 3.5 mg/kg diminazene aceturate, respectively. During the 90 days of trial period there was no statistical significant difference (P>0.05) in mean PCV of the five groups before and after treatment: (26+1.23), (27.5+1.33), (26.5+2.03), (29.8+2.12) and (25.5+ 3.06) for groups I, II, III, IV and V respectively. Generally diminazene aceturate at dose of 7 mg/kg and isomethamidum chloride at dose of 0.5 mg/kg b.wt were most effective in terms of curing infections as well as improving PCV and body weight. It was concluded that where there are indications for drug resistance against isomethamidum and diminazene aceturate the use of trypanocidal drugs should be supervised, the principle of sanative pairs has to be applied and chemotherapy needs to be integrated with other methods like vector (tsetse and biting flies) control. Keywords: Diminazene-aceturate, drug-resistance, goats, isomethamidumchloride, trypanosomosis, Tselemti

The Ethiopian dairy sector with focus on traditional butter: A review

Ethiopia is believed to have the largest cattle population in Africa. The total annual milk production from cattle has been estimated at 3.5 billion liters from 11.38 million dairy cows. As a result, cow’s milk is the focus of milk processing in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, the base of milk processing is fermented milk (Ergo) with no defined starter cultures used to initiate fermentation. The main reasons reported for the use of fermented milk as a base of processing are the small volume of milk produced per day, better shelflife of fermented milk, consumer preference and type of available milk processing materials. The success of dairy development to a large extent depends on market for the product combined with other dairy infrastructure and availability of small-scale processing facilities to manufacture high quality dairy products. In Ethiopia, only 6.6 % of the total milk produced in the country is marketed as liquid milk and the remaining 48.8 % and 44.6 % of produced milk is used for home consumption and processing, respectively. Out of the 44.6 % of milk allocated for household processing, 75 % and 25 % go to butter and Ethiopian cottage cheese production, respectively. Thus, the products could be easily transported to market place, and fetch better prices or returns. The microbiological information on traditional butter is not fully available in Ethiopia. However, the available previous research works conducted in Ethiopia revealed that the microbial count of butter is generally above the acceptable limits set for quality butter. The presence of bacteria in butter reduces the keeping quality of the product and certain bacteria with their associated enzymes and toxins may even survive high temperature and create public health hazards. The potential sources of butter microbial contamination are raw materials, air, water and equipment, which usually occur during processing, packaging and storage of finished product. Therefore, all precautions should be taken to avoid contamination of butter and public health hazards.&nbsp

Ultrasound Prediction Model for % Intramuscular Fat in Beef Cattle

Real-time ultrasound technology offers producers an opportunity to measure compositional traits in beef cattle. A recent research project focused on the development of a prediction model for the Classic Scanner 200. The accuracy of this model has been previously reported and can be found in the Journal of Animal Science 2000, Volume 78, pages 11-18

Assessment of vitamin A supplementation coverage and its association with childhood illness in Boloso Sore Woreda, Welayta Zone, SNNP Region, Ethiopia

Background: Vitamin A plays vital role in the physiology of vision and immunity. Globally quarters of a billion children are Vitamin A deficient. Vitamin A supplementation of children and mothers during postpartum period is a key strategy to avert the deficiency. However the effect of Vitamin A supplementation on incidence of childhood illnesses is controversial. Objective: To assess the effect of Vitamin A supplementation on the reduction of common childhood illnesses, and to measure the coverage of vitamin A supplementation among children aged 6-59 months and mothers during postpartum period. Methods: A retrospective cohort study which involves comparison between Vitamin A supplemented and nonsupplemented children was conducted in Feb 2008 in Boloso Sore Woreda, Wolayta Zone, SNNPR. A total of 1601 children aged 6-59 months were selected using Probability Proportional to Size (PPS) sampling technique. Results: Vitamin A supplementation coverage among children (6-59 months) was 83.1% and among women (in postpartum period) who had given birth in the preceding 12 months of the survey was 13.2%. In comparison with the corresponding level in 2005, the coverage in the area has increased significantly (